


After The Feast

by aphoticdepths



Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, M/M, Rape Aftermath, attempts at hurt/comfort, post-Fuck or Die, writing the leper is so goddamn hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 16:52:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphoticdepths/pseuds/aphoticdepths
Summary: The Jester and Leper retreat after an unfortunate encounter with the Crimson Court and its Baron.





	After The Feast

**Author's Note:**

> I used one of the default names for the Jester because I REFUSE to write about a character named Jingles.

  
The two of them make their way back to town through the muck of the swamp, covered in blood and seed and muck and fouler things. Even if either of them would rather have it another way, neither of them had the strength to walk unsupported by the other.  
  
Neither of them brings it up. When they came out of the crumbling stone and into the calf-deep mud and mist of the outer edges of the Courtyard, Baldwin had said, "I'm sorry," but Foliot had just given a harsh laugh and told him to save it for later.  
  
The ground was getting firmer. Soon enough, they would be back to the Hamlet.  
  
"I'm sorry," Baldwin says again.  
  
Foliot glares at him through the porcelain facelessness of his mask. "Stop bloody apologizing already."  
  
He stops. "I hurt you. I gave you the-" _The kiss of death_ , he wants to say, but he knows that that particular art of words would be a blade for Foliot to arm himself with. "I tainted you with my doom." He would not have done it on his own. Even the grim pleasures of the Baron would not be a death he feared. But he had seen the way Foliot froze up in terror at the ultimatum, had heard the stories of where his accent came from and what its king had amused himself as. So he had delayed his death, and in a fit of pity, forced another soul into the hell he lived.  
  
Foliot gives a tight sigh-held back, a short rush of breath into the cold, fetid air. Cleaner as they go to the hamlet, but the smell of blood remains. "As far as entertainments put on for a court go, you were one of my more pleasant experiences."  
  
He opens his mouth, and a noise comes out, but before he can shape it into words the jester gives a derisive snort. "No, no, no. Just close your mouth for the rest of the journey. Your rusty clanging's more than enough noise. When we get back, sob into a confessional about how you've defiled and doomed me or whatnot. Or yourself. Or your country, somehow. Who knows what you holy fools think."  
  
There are those who will not take a gift of water in a desert for fear of pity. Baldwin does not speak. He supports Foliot through the rest of the journey, even when his pain becomes almost too much to keep going on his own feet. It is not long before the smell mingles with filth and rot and fish to be the reek of the Hamlet that has almost become safe.  
  
Foliot attempts to shrug off the metal and rot of his arm. "Well. I'm going to go take a bath and attempt to pickle my liver." He looks up at him. Foliot is not a small man-he is bone-thin, but tall and with a ropy muscle to him-but Baldwin towers over him, as he does most of them. "And if in all your guilty blabberings you talk to the priests about what you think might have happened to the poor, sad clown, I'll slit your damned throat."  
  
Baldwin inclines his head, and says nothing.


End file.
